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Alec Dinwoodie

Places I Hid

In the dryer. I could see a wide circle of my mother’s apron. She pretended loudly not to know I was there, and finally reached in to tickle me. I tried to slam the door on her arm in a joyous panic.

In the niche between my old bed and my bookshelf, with six Playmobil knights and my meanest plastic dinosaurs and my feet perched like happily frightened rabbits on the air vent. The black knight usually befriended the Tyrannosaurus and won.

Under the stairs with my brother playing “Nuclear Holocaust” or “Tornado”. The mutants or the black funnel would circle our fort until dinnertime, most days, but sometimes I let them come in. I thought that would keep him in his proper role - whimpering behind me for pathos while I manned the laser or worked feverishly on the weather machine. Then as now, however, he uncooperatively believed himself invincible at hand-to-hand combat, even with wind. I was the only one who really enjoyed hiding.

In the girls’ bathroom, where no one would chase me. When I came out, I was at once a gir-el, a gir-el, a girl! and a hero; everyone had been told I had climbed into the ceiling and seen Rachel Toback in a stall. I was told this myself and although I did not believe it, I did believe I could have climbed into the ceiling. I believed I should have.

In someone else’s bathroom at my first high school party, where I only had to fake being sick to go home and avoid dancing. I think I may have been homesick, too. There was actually no beer at this party. I might remember it better today if there had been.

Under the Rte. 29 footbridge while they ran on above. Trolls must be incredibly confident people to yell out like that. It’s dark and full of echoes under bridges. In my most secret moments now I can imagine being a troll. The key, I think, is not to consider trollhood at all.

In the security stairwells at the famous Mall in Columbia with a bowl made out of a toilet paper tube and aluminium foil spangled with pinholes. We always burned our bowls when we’d finished. That kind of cardboard doesn’t leave any ash. There were three exits from every stairwell, and the guards were never smart enough to cover all of them, even when they knew we were there.

Across campus in Steve’s plastiwood dorm room when my new life-long intimates and fellow scholars knew something true about me. I had thought I could hide in Chicago, a place big enough to let me forget I was hiding, but nonetheless I wound up more and more often with Steve, who still listened to Dio. I still like to sing operatically once in a while. Try singing this poem operatically to maximize its effect and your own generous empathy.